Who first said Merry Christmas?
Bishops have rival claims
The exact origin of Merry Christmas as a greeting is unclear. We do know that though ‘mery’ has been associated with Christmas from the 1500s. In a letter to Thomas Cromwell in 1534:
“And this our Lord God send you a mery Christmas, and a comfortable, to your heart’s desire.”
In 2022 researchers at Worcester Cathedral claimed that their bishop Charles Booth got his seasonal greeting ( “merry this Christmas”) fourteen years earlier.
In the 1650s, Cromwell’s namesake and his puritan pals were in charge. They didn’t do Christmas or encourage merry anything. But the greeting became widespread under the Hanoverians. Its spirit, if not the exact combination of words, is present in the carol, God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen, first published in 1775.
Victorian Christmas
“Every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” A Christmas Carol (1843)
The Victorians were the first to seriously exploit the commercial opportunities offered by Christmas.
In 1843, two seemingly unconnected events helped establish Merry Christmas as one of the most commonly used expressions in the English language.
One was the publication of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol — and immediate and enduring success. The other was what appeared to be a failed business experiment.
A civil servant Henry Cole wanted to send a Christmas message to a large number of friends and business contacts. To do this more efficiently, he designed what he called a Christmas card.
To help cover his costs, Cole sold spare copies of his cards. These were priced at a shilling each — the equivalent of £50 today. The venture proved a commercial flop but inspired others to enter the market.
Mass production reduced costs, which in turn increased demand. Soon the idea of exchanging cards with the slogan ‘Merry Christmas’ became an established Victorian ‘tradition’ of Christmas.
In 1915 a young company named Hallmark began producing low-cost cards, further expanding the market. The Christmas calendar also needed to be redrawn. Starting the he Twelve Days of Christmas on December 24 was no good — especially with the shops closed on the big day. ‘Picking a man’s pocket’ was now vaguely linked to Advent while a new concept — shopping days until Christmas — took hold
Ebenezer Scrooge could not stop ‘every idiot’ from using the phrase that infuriated him. Eventually he was strong-armed by the spirits (gaslit you might say) into changing his tune to that of his do-gooding nephew, Fred.
The Charity collectors won out and continue to cash in. ‘Merry Christmas’ not ‘Bah! Humbug’ is still the universal greeting of the season.
